One-Eyed
Wonder Weasels take 3rd Place at Regional CompetitionSaturday, April 29th, twenty-one 5th and 6th grade students from Prairie
Middle School traveled to Moscow to the University of Idaho campus where
they competed in the NASA Idaho Tech 2006 Mars Rover Challenge. The
Mars Rover Challenge competition
involves Rover designs constructed by middle school teams from throughout
North Idaho from Lego kits and certain other allowable non-Lego materials
such as plastic, paper, or metal sheets. Teams compete on several
rigorous competitive hands on courses that are designed to put the skills
of the Rover designs and the operators to the ultimate test. Teams
also compete in team project presentation, budget analysis, time management,
and lab notebook records, which are the backbone of any true science project.
Prairie entered four teams this year. The One-Eyed Wonder Weasels
(Josh Roeper, Tyler Latimer, Derek VanderPas, Tayler Heitman, Tyler Workman,
and Hanna Casey; led by Laurie Workman, Garrett Workman, Mike VanderPas
and Brian Latimer) took 3rd place in overall competition out of 60 teams!
Congratulations to Tyler Latimer and Hanna Casey who took 1st place in
the Blind Drive competition! The Weasels went on to compete later
in the day against the top four teams from South Idaho and again, Tyler
Latimer and Hanna Casey took 1st in the Blind Drive competition.
The Rover Riders (Slade Nelson, Torin Dalgleish, Tucker Stefan, Mathew
Jungert, Jaret Frei, and Cody Tillinghast; led by Diana Holubetz) worked
hard and demonstrated awesome teamwork, but did not win any competitions.
Floyd Whitley was team leader of two groups with the help of Mike Duclos,
Brian Latimer and Zara Hasslestrom. Red Rover, Red Rover, Send the
Martians Right Over was comprised of Josh Zigler, Rachel Falzon, Claire
Whitley, Kody Duclos, and Justin Schmidt. The Red Rovers had an excellent
presentation and display, once again bringing home a perfect score in their
lab notebook. Christopher Hoene, Nick Shears, Troy Lorentz, and Kyle
Uhlenkott made up the Space Pioneers. These boys tied for first in
the Hill Climb competition, climbing to a height of 60 degrees! The
tie breaker was decided over the weight of the Rovers which put the Space
Pioneers in second.
We look forward to next year with another group of young engineers
to head back to Moscow!